Peter Temple's blog

The two months since the ETFPortfolio was last updated have been what might be described a "steady as she goes" period. The market has recovered some poise, compared to the periodic bout of euro-itis with which it was afflicted last time round.

It is a little-known fact that the iShares powerhouse, a big player in the now well-established market for exchange traded funds, actually began life as a joint venture between US bank Wells Fargo and the Japanese investment house Nikko.

"Suffering as defensiveness to kick in" is about the best description that can be applied to the ETFPortfolio right now. In the past month, gold has languished, the euro has been weak, and emerging markets have continued to be under a cloud. Since these are the main areas in which the portfolio is invested, its performance has been, to say the least, pretty second-rate.

Call me a dinosaur if you like but I really can't be bothered to set up a Facebook account. As for Twitter... don't get me started. So the news that Facebook's IPO is coming along in a couple of weeks leaves me as cold as a pickled egg.

Announcing a stock consolidation to boost a flagging share price - as Royal Bank of Scotland has just done - has a sort of other-worldly quality to it. After all, nothing really changes. Shareholders end up with, say, a 10th the number of shares they held in a company whose share price, theoretically at least, should be 10 times its previous level.

A lot of investors have been bearish for so long, they have forgotten how to be bulls. Or else the habit of trading, selling the FTSE 100 whenever it risks moving above 6000, is simply too ingrained a habit to be abandoned.

One of the most awkward moments of my career in the city came many years ago when I asked an American fund manager why she did not invest in tobacco stocks. The reason was that her husband had recently died from smoking-induced lung cancer. There is not much you can say to that.

As a teetotal non-smoker for the last 23 years, I have no axe to grind for the cigarette companies, nor for brewers and distillers. Both were industries that I covered as an analyst for more than a decade.

Obstinacy seems to be the main characteristic of the ETFPortfolio at present. It stubbornly refuses to perform. One reason is perhaps the determinedly defensive stance we have pursued for the last few months. This may pay off eventually, but it is turning into quite a long wait.

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